Ignore the hype, and think what is happening

Rating: 9/10 (1 November 2002)

A lot of people seem to be misreading this movie. Though it has been excessively advertised as a horror movie, those who get their thrill from the big scare will find horror fare too scarce in this piece.
Elements of plot may have been used before, but I mentally engaged with the characters and their motivations. Except the odd occasion of walking or straying with a potential murderer round the corner.
The direction was good. A little to jerky with the last act, making it a tad difficult to follow who was where and doing what. But that closeness and reality were there. Like the way you felt you could reach out and grab a handful of dirt in Saving Private Ryan.
For me the humans infected with 'The Rage' where part of the setting, the environment, and not the essence of the story. People operate from a realistic point of view in this film, if you're angry you exact vengeance. It's human nature. Why do we demand punishment for our criminals? justice? reform? hardly, it's revenge. These are opinions this film is not afraid to make. However, advertising this film as horror will attract a lot of folk who care little about morality and thus will be disappointed that there is a short changing of shock. And let's face it. With this premiss we could have had 90mins of horror tension.
I did feel a little cheated of 'scare', but was pleasantly surprised at the depth in what I was led to believe was the scariest horror movie of the year.
PS Obvious comparisons are made to Vanilla Sky with the bare streets, but it's not about the implied meaning, more amazement that so much of London was shot abandoned, when it hums 24/7 and you can't shut any of it down to shoot. One up for reasoning with the public, and good looking ladies stopping the morning traffic by standing in front of cars. :)